The royals - Kitty Kelley [98]
The First Lady was sitting in her bedroom at the White House when her secretary entered with yet another dispatch from the British Embassy. For weeks diplomatic cables had been rocketing between London and Washington regarding the Queen’s dinner party on June 5, 1961, in honor of the President and his First Lady. But she was exasperated.
“This is absurd,” she said to her secretary. “It’s not like I suggested inviting the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.”
The First Lady had suggested inviting her sister, Lee Radziwill, and Lee’s husband, the Polish Prince Stanislas Radziwill. But after the White House sent its proposed guest list to Buckingham Palace, the Radziwills were de-listed. By the Queen.
The Kennedys planned a stopover in London for a few days to attend the baptism of the President’s godchild, Christina Radziwill, after the President’s state visit to Paris. In London the Kennedys would stay with the Radziwills at their home on Buckingham Place, around the corner from the Palace. While there, President Kennedy wanted to meet informally with the British Prime Minister. Although Kennedy’s visit was private and not official, the British government recommended that the Queen entertain the President and his wife. The Queen agreed. It was to be the first time an American president had dined with a British monarch in Buckingham Palace since Woodrow Wilson was a guest in 1918.
A dinner party for fifty people was planned in the state dining room of the Palace, and the White House was asked to submit the names of people the Kennedys would like to attend. The First Lady proposed her host and hostess, the Radziwills, as well as Princess Margaret, whom Mrs. Kennedy wanted to meet; the President asked for Princess Marina of Kent, whom he had met during his year at Oxford. The Queen did not approve any of them.
Annoyed by the royal rebuff, the First Lady telephoned the British Embassy in Washington to speak to Her Majesty’s Ambassador, David Ormsby-Gore, who was also a close Kennedy family friend. He explained gently the Palace policy on divorce, saying that because this was an unofficial visit, the Radziwills, both of whom were divorced—once for her, twice for him—could not be invited to the Palace. If this were an official visit and the Radziwills were part of the official group accompanying the President, they would have to be invited.
“But she’s my sister,” Jackie told the British Ambassador, “and they are our hosts.”
The Ambassador sympathized and suggested that she call the U.S. Chief of Protocol, Angier Biddle Duke, to appeal the ruling through the U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, David Bruce.
“Oh, Angie,” Jackie wailed, “you’ve got to help me.”
The diplomat reassured the First Lady and promised to contact David Bruce. Jackie then called her husband in the Oval Office to tell him what she had done. The President was irked. He quickly called Ambassador Bruce in London to say he did not want to cause an international incident.
The Ambassador noted the President’s conversation in his diary: “He wanted to make it clear that for his part he had no feeling about this incident, and any decision on the guest list must be the Queen’s.”
Her Majesty eventually relented and included the Radziwills; she even allowed them to be listed in the Court Circular for the occasion as “Prince” and “Princess.” That was a great concession because the Queen had never granted Radziwill royal license to use his Polish title* in Great Britain.
“She did not like him,” said Evangeline Bruce, the Ambassador’s wife. “It had nothing to do with divorce. My husband was divorced, and the Queen loved him. She just didn’t like Stash Radziwill… didn’t approve of him and always referred to him and his wife as Mr. and Mrs., which irritated them.”
“Anyway, the Queen had her revenge,” Jackie later told Gore Vidal, her stepbrother once removed. “No Margaret, no Marina, no one except every Commonwealth minister of agriculture that they could find. The Queen was pretty heavy-going. I think she resented me. Philip was nice, but nervous. One felt absolutely